Bitter Heart
by pusa.is.me
Summary: A TakaxSugi AU. It was a lovely night, actually. But all she cared about was the way she was going to castrate a certain martial artist when he finally arrives.


_And it's out! Not my original muse, but that muse was too angsty for my taste, and as I've told **periberi**, I'm way past my angst stage in writing fiction, so yeah. Goodbye muse. _

_And I suggest you read the whole thing, all the way to the bottom, even if this pairing is not your OTP. I promise it'll be worth it. And yes, please review even if you don't like it. It will help me come up with better stories in the future (I think). For now, enjoy!

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**Bitter Heart**

It was a lovely night, actually. The sun had just gone down, leaving a splash of dark violet and blue-black in the horizon. A few stars were already scattered in the night sky, and the lovely planet Venus was visible beside a waning crescent moon. The laughter of children and the bark of friendly dogs intermingled with the soft chirping of bluejays and humming of cicadas in nearby trees. There was a cool summer breeze, and the fresh scent of leaves permeated the air.

A perfect night, come to think of it.

A certain Takako Chigusa apparently didn't care one bit about it though. All she cared about was the way she was going to castrate a certain martial artist when he _finally _arrives.

She sat on the couch, arms crossed around her endowed front, absolutely fuming.

_WherethefuckareyouHiroki?!_

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* * *

_

For the past week, she and Hiroki, her best friend since kindergarten, had been having review sessions in her house for their upcoming midterm examinations. For the past week, she had been preparing dinner for him so that he wouldn't have to study with an empty stomach. For the past week, he had been late _every single fucking time._

On the first night, she didn't mind, not really. She thought that he might have gotten stuck in traffic (traffic in their district? What a load of bull.) or sprained an ankle or something. The second night, she still forgave him when he apologized for being an hour late. Had to take care of something, he said, tapping his nose afterwards. She waved off a pretty hand and headed towards the table, and waited while Hiroki followed suit. On the third night, she demanded an explanation.

"I... I came from the dojo," Hiroki answered, and Takako swatted his finger away before he got the chance to tap his nose again.

""Dojo my foot," she growled. "The dojo's closed on Wednesdays."

Hiroki visibly paled. Takako narrowed her eyes.

"You've been hiding something from me, Sugi?" she hissed.

"O-of course not," Hiroki responded, then, "Wow! This is my favorite! You cooked this for me?"

Takako would have smacked him on the head for trying to change the subject, but decided that it wasn't worth her energy. Again, she chose to forgive him.

It was hard not to forgive Hiroki Sugimura, that much she knew.

On the fourth night, she threw a shoe at him the minute he entered her bedroom.

"Fuck you," she snarled. "I don't know why I bother waiting for you every fucking night." She threw the other shoe, and it missed Hiroki by a hair's width. "I'm not the one failing these subjects! I don't need review sessions! Can you please remind me why we're doing this in the first place? Wasn't it to save your sorry ass from failing the exams?!"

Hiroki, who chose that moment to hide behind Takako's computer chair, raised his arms in protest. "I'm sorry!"

"Sorry my ass," Takako growled, throwing a pillow this time. "What have you really been up to, huh, Sugi? And don't tell me you've been to the fucking dojo. I called your sensei. He said you haven't showed up in a fucking week!"

Hiroki's face reddened. "I'm sorry!" he said again, still hiding behind the chair (and doing a lousy job at it). "Would you forgive me if I tell you I'm doing something important?"

Takako raised an eyebrow in response. "Something more important than passing your exams and practicing in the dojo?" When Sugi's face reddened to a higher notch, something dawned upon Takako's mind, and she mentally smacked herself instead.

How could she have missed it? Hiroki had been sporting a light blush on his cheeks for a couple of weeks now. Hiroki only blushed that much for one reason, and one reason solely.

"Does she have a name?"

"W-what?" Hiroki all but choked his own saliva in response. "What are you talking about?"

"A name," Takako repeated, frowning, not moving from her spot, not throwing anything either. "The reason why you're always late. What's her name?"

"I-- I don't understand what you're..."

"Stop acting like I'm stupid," she growled, clenching and un-clenching her fists. "Is she in our class?"

"Takako!"

Takako sat on her bed to stop the shaking of her knees. She was burning in anger, disappointment, and was that a speck of jealousy hidden somewhere there? "You should have just told me Sugi," she continued, "You should have just told me that you're taking _review lessons_ from someone else." A pause. "Or are they of a different kind?"

"What are you talking about?" Hiroki, momentarily forgetting the threat to his life, stood up from his crouched position behind the chair and hurried towards his best friend. "I am not taking review lessons from anyone else!"

Takako's irritation was slowly turning to tears. "Get out."

"But Taka..."

She threw another pillow even before Hiroki got hold of her. "Get the fuck out Sugi!"

Hiroki lowered his arms, gave Takako a dejected look, and exited the room. Takako finally let the tears fall down her pretty face.

* * *

The following morning, Hiroki approached her in school and apologized. She pretended to ignore him and kept her eyes glued to a book. She hoped (or maybe not) that he would take the hint and leave her alone. Hiroki obviously did not.

"I'll drop by your house later, okay?" Hiroki said, still trying to make Takako look at him. "I promise to be there, so don't go to bed without seeing me, okay?"

Then their professor entered, and Hiroki was forced to return to his seat. Takako bit her lip to keep herself from smiling.

_Fuck you for being so cute, _she told herself as she took out her notebook and began to write what was written on the blackboard.

* * *

And now there she was, sitting alone on the couch, waiting for two hours for a certain Hiroki Sugimura to arrive. To make matters worse, he had his cellphone turned off, so she couldn't call and curse him til kingdom come.

Takako finally stood up and marched to her room. "Fuck him," she growled, stomping up the stairs, not caring if she woke her parents and little sister in the process. "Fuck him and whoever whore he's fucking."

* * *

An hour later, Takako heard a tap on her window.

At first she thought it was a burglar, and she instinctively grabbed the nearest object she could hold on to, which turned out to be a trophy she won in one of the track contests she had participated in the last year.

She creeped towards her window and peered against the glass. The person outside peered back.

"What the fuck?!" she all but yelled when she saw her best friend hanging on to the ledge outside her room for dear life.

She hurriedly opened the window to let Hiroki in. "Are you insane or something?!" she hissed when Hiroki was safely inside. "What the hell were you thinking, climbing my window like that? Don't you know the concept of a doorbell?!"

Hiroki tapped his nose and Takako immediately swatted it away. "I didn't want to wake your parents up."

Takako glanced at the clock. "What are you doing here, Sugi?" she growled, hands planted on hips. "It's close to midnight already!"

"Well, I..." Hiroki started to tap his nose but stopped midway when he saw Takako's eyes narrowed down. "I came to your front door but saw that the lights were off, so I figured you didn't wait for me after all."

Takako was furious. "What, you make me wait for three fucking hours and you expect me to be a good little girl and stay up? Just what do you think you're doing, huh? I already told you, you don't have to come here after your little roll in the hay with whats-her-name! It's obvious that she's more important anyway. You've been spending the entire week with her, neh?"

Hiroki bit his lower lip. Takako interpreted that as a confirmation to her accusation.

"I knew it," she spat with enough venom in her voice to paralyze an ox. "Who is she? And why haven't you told me about her? Damn it Sugi. I thought we're best friends!"

"We are," Hiroki answered in the quietest of voices.

"Then why keep this from me?" Takako demanded. "You didn't hide your other crushes from me before. What's so special about this one?"

"She's... different, that's all," Hiroki answered again, and when Takako stared, he refused to look back at her.

Takako felt she was on the verge of tears. All those years of hoping, waiting, praying for him to come to his senses and realize that _she was there the whole fucking time_, all gone to waste, just because of some stupid girl she didn't even know the name of.

"Different," she whispered back, defeated. She walked towards her bed, sat down, and shut her eyes tightly. "Why? Why is she different?"

She felt Hiroki sit beside her. "I think," Hiroki started, weighing his words well, "I think... I'm in love with this one."

The first sob came out, and Takako couldn't hold it inside her any longer. Before she could stop herself, she was crying, really crying, for the boy she had loved all her life, for the wasted time she had spent pinning on him, for all the unborn children she and Hiroki would never have.

"Taka?" Hiroki asked, worried. "Why are you crying?"

Takako shook her head. "I bit my tongue, 'tis all." She wiped the tears away and forced a smile. "When do I get to meet the lucky girl?" _And scratch her eyes out, damn her for taking Sugi away from me._

Hiroki smiled gently back. "You've already met."

Takako frowned. "So she is in our class."

Hiroki nodded.

"I knew it," Takako answered, punching Hiroki's shoulder angrily. "Why the fuck didn't you tell me?"

Hiroki chuckled. "I thought you would already know."

Takako was genuinely confused. "Why the fuck would I know?" she snapped. "It's not like I'm close to anyone else in the class aside from you."

She got a shrug as an answer. "Damn it Sugi, what does that shrug mean, huh?"

Hiroki raised both hands in mock defense. "Sorry! I just... well, you're supposed to know these things, right? You're better at these kind of stuff than I am. So I thought that you'd... well, that you'd know."

Takako's frown deepened. "The hell?" A pause. "What's her fucking name anyway?"

A beat.

"Taka."

"What?" Takako responded, annoyed. "Don't 'Taka' me. I'm asking you a question, damn it."

Hiroki repeated it. "Takako."

Takako was pissed off as hell by now. "Sugi I swear to God if you don't take me seriously I'll..."

"Her name's Taka." A beat. "Takako Chigusa."

Silence. Cue in crickets.

"WHATTHEFUCKAREYOUTALKINGABOUT?"

Hiroki sweatdropped. "What? You asked me for the name of the girl. I gave you an answer."

"That's my name, fucker!"

"It is, isn't it?"

"It is! So why the hell are you answering with... oh. Oh!"

Hiroki chuckled and his blush deepened to a different shade of red. "You get it now?"

Takako blinked. Her head was spinning, and she wanted to pinch herself to make sure it wasn't all a bad dream. "But... why?"

"Do you really have to ask?" was all Hiroki answered before enclosing his strong arms around her.

Takako gave no protest whatsoever.

* * *

"You still haven't told me why you've been late for our review sessions," she whispered as they lay intertwined on her bed half an hour later, Hiroki's arms chastely wrapped around her.

Hiroki smiled. "I promised Mim to study with him in exchange for tips on how to confess to you."

Takako frowned. "And it took you five days to do that?"

Hiroki blushed. "Well, on the first night, he said it would be better to annoy you first and then confess later, for added impact."

And you believed him?"

"Uhh..."

Takako grinned her infamous grin. "We are going to have a long chat with Shinji Mimura tomorrow."

END

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_Hello! And now that you've reached the bottom, a little something for the ShinjixTakako lovers out there. Here's a quick preview to my next story, which hopefully I can finish by this year (hopefully). Currently untitled, but meh._

_Here you go!_

_

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**Untitled**_

Now that I think about it, it's all that stupid Kayoko Kotohiki's fault to begin with. Her, and the fact that my spineless-of-a-best-friend is crushing over her but is too spineless to ask her out, or talk to her, for that matter.

And just what did Hiroki see in her anyway? Sure, she's sweet, shy and quiet, just like him. She belongs to the tea ceremony club, big deal. Who the fuck cares about tea these days anyway? Sugi says she's cute. I guess she is, compared to a troll. So she's sincere. So she's not intimidating. So she's not _me._

Hell, if we had lived in an alternate universe, Kayoko and I could have been friends. I could learn to like her, and maybe pretend to be interested in her stupid hobby.

Not. I honestly couldn't care less about tea or girly things anyway. Well, maybe except for jewerly. But that's because it's an expression of independence. There's nothing independent about preparing tea, is there?

Okay, okay. I'll get off the tea's case. In all honesty, it's a waste of my time anyway.

I may come off as a bitch to you right now, but I swear, I am not usually like this. I'm proud, that much I admit. I appear intimidating, and that's one of the reasons I have very few friends. But I am, whether you believe it or not, actually pretty shy. Take our class, for example. There are only a handful of people I feel comfortable around with -- Sakura, Yukie, maybe Yutaka and Kuninobu, when their annoying best friends aren't around. And Hiroki, of course, but that is already a given. The rest I don't really care about. What? You think I'd waste my time trying to please a group of junior high schoolers who call me Robo-bitch behind my back? Just because I'm an over-achiever unlike the rest of them doesn't give them the right to call me names.

As I always say, _Fuck you all, I don't like you either anyway_.

So. Back to my rant. As I said earlier, it's all that stupid Kayoko's fault. It's her fucking fault that I am now stuck for a whole night with the most arrogant fucking bastard in the whole class, no, scratch that, the whole fucking school. Her, and the fact that my spineless-of-a-best-friend is crushing over her but is too spineless to ask her out, or talk to her, for that matter.

She and Hiroki should just die and be damned to retard hell.

They should bring this fucktard Shinji Mimura with them too.

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_Now I shall demand reviews!... err... uhh... I mean, reviews, please?_


End file.
